Tag: selfrespect

  • Do you remember you?

    Do you remember you?

    Sometimes, we lose ourselves to the hopelessness of others.

    Sometimes, we lose ourselves to the failed expectations of life.

    And sometimes, we lose ourselves because we thought it was our failings that earned us pain, while oblivious to the fact that it was in fact our success that threatened the ones we loved.

    In these, and so many other scenarios, our perspective is tainted by our belief that what we wish to achieve with others, is what is important to them to achieve with us.

    When this belief proves to be false, we question our self-worth when our best efforts only cause upheaval, and our best intentions are always misconstrued as arrogance or materialism.

    If we don’t stop to see the demons that our significant others are battling, we’ll judge ourselves by how they fail to overcome their demons.

    That’s when our demons strengthen their hold on us.

    Unless we reconnect with who we are, we’ll forever wait for someone else to do right by us before we allow ourselves to find joy in who we are.

    Rediscover who you really are, so that you can shake off the debris that you accumulated through the years with each toxic character that convinced you that you were someone you’re not.

    The risk of coping with failure or betrayal is that our act of coping grows to define who we think we are.

    But that’s when we lose sight of who we were before that moment.

    The only way to move beyond it is to recognise that coping is only needed as long as we’re still holding on to the hurt or the disappointment of what could’ve been, but didn’t happen.

    Let go of it, and the joy that you experienced before that defining moment will return.

    It always starts with you.

  • Where is your humanity?

    Where is your humanity?

    Taking pride in the colour of your skin or ethnicity distracts you from your humanity.

    Our humanness, our gentleness, our inclination towards kindness – these are all part of our natural state.

    We lose it when our need to be associated with significance or superiority distracts us from this, and replaces it with the fear of being inadequate.

    When we lose sight of the fear of inadequacy, responding from a place of fear becomes our new normal.

    Everything that threatens the source of our significance – that is, our skin colour, religion, cultural roots, etc. – then feels like a threat to our sense of self.

    Thus, we feel the anger, resentment, or blind rage that rises when we are judged by the colour of our skin, our religion, our ethnicity, or any other association that makes us feel significant.

    But, we grow convinced that we’re standing up for a good cause by protecting what we value, even though the way in which we protect it undermines the very essence of what we claim to stand for.

    That’s when it becomes clear that we only stand for what we do because it offers us a place in this world through being associated with the cause.

    It offers us significance and protects us from irrelevance.

    That’s when we’ve traded who we are, for who we want to be perceived as, because we’re convinced that we are not enough.

    Own Your Life.

    It always starts with you.

  • Dishonesty, the destroyer

    Dishonesty, the destroyer

    The profundity of the verse from the Qur’an that says that if you are grateful, Allah will increase you, resonates strongly through every theme of life.

    It is through gratitude that good is created, harm is kept at bay, and we are connected to what feeds our soul.

    Therefore, what destroys good must be the opposite of gratitude.

    It’s easy to call it ingratitude, but not so easy to identify it as that.

    Ingratitude is not just the absence of gratitude, it’s the presence of everything that denies it.

    It is the desire for that which undermines the good that we have, or pursuing that which we haven’t earned.

    It is the betrayal of what we stand for, to feed the fear of losing something that was never real.

    It the compromise of the authenticity of who we are, so that we may be accepted by another, because we can’t bear the thought of being alone with only our self-respect to keep us company.

    Dishonesty is a denial of the self, long before it is a betrayal of trust.

    That’s why it breathes destruction wherever it shows up, because it first destroys the self which then destroys the world around us because we grow desperate for others to make us feel whole.

    All that because we were ungrateful for who we are.

    Dishonesty is the enemy of dignity, and without dignity, the world will be at war with your soul.

    “If you are grateful, I will surely increase you.” (Qur’an 14:7)

  • Reclaim your worth

    Reclaim your worth

    Peace is most ravaged when we convince ourselves that we were treated badly by others, or by someone we trusted, because we weren’t good enough for them.

    A betrayal of trust, no matter how noble the person, reflects cowardice on their part.

    We only betray the trust that others place in us when we feel burdened by that trust, or we avoid accepting the responsibility that it demands of us.

    Either way, it’s a shortcoming on the part of the betrayer, not the betrayed.

    Sometimes we’re so focused on getting even with those who betrayed our trust that we fail to notice how that fixation distracts us from fulfilling the rights of others, which in itself is also a betrayal of trust.

    Understand the internal struggle of those who treated you badly, so that you will realise that they were simply incapable of being better than that in that moment.

    It may not take away the disappointment or the hurt, but that is part of your humanness.

    When that disappointment overwhelms your joy in life and steals your enthusiasm for the future, it’s no longer because of how someone treated you,it’s because of how you see yourself because of how they treated you.

    It’s that easy to give up your power to influence the outcomes and the happiness that you experience in life.

    You do so by believing that how you were treated by troubled souls is a reflection of your worth.

    That’s simply ingratitude for who you are.

    Misplacing your trust in someone is a mistake made from good intentions.

    Discard the mistake after learning from it. Don’t discard the good that inspired that good intention.

    It always starts with you.

  • Escaping addiction

    Escaping addiction

    It’s not drugs that steal our children from us. Like us, they also need to feel significant.

    Taking drugs is not just a bad habit. It’s a means to escape what we don’t want to deal with in the world around us.

    Is it a bad decision? Absolutely. Because escaping something never resolves it, it only defers it to a later time.

    But we all indulge in escapism of some kind, that’s why we have little to no communication in homes that centre around technology or social media, leaving the young ones struggling to find a space in which they belong, physically and emotionally.

    The emotional connection that they then forge with fellow escapees is what makes drugs the escape of choice.

    If we treat them as addicts, they will behave like addicts. If we deny what is lacking in their emotional make up, we’ll deny ourselves the opportunity to address it.

    Addressing it doesn’t only benefit them, it also benefits us because the only reason that they would feel emotionally isolated is because we’re not emotionally accessible.

    That means that we’re also denying ourselves the sweetness of life because if we’re emotionally unavailable, then we’re convinced that what is important to us is not important to anyone else.

    That’s why we lose ourselves to duty and dismiss any demands to be emotionally available for those around us.

    That’s how we create the environment that makes substance abuse or gambling, or other escapes attractive as a coping mechanism.

    Break the cycle.

    It always starts with you.

  • When sincerity is tested

    When sincerity is tested

    Like the old saying goes, talk is cheap, and actions speak louder than words.

    It’s easy to say the right thing, especially when times are good and what we’re committing to is convenient.

    However, when our commitments pull us between what we want for ourselves versus what we committed to doing for someone else, that’s when our sincerity is tested.

    But what defines our sincerity?

    Is it how we want to appear to others or how we live by the values that we stand for?

    The moment we’re focused on what others think of us, we play to the responses that we want from them, even when we’re doing something good.

    The problem with this is that without realising it, our motivation slowly shifts from living by our values to how we are perceived by others.

    That’s the beginning of how we lose ourselves to the attention that we get from others.

    More than this, the lower our self-respect, the more inclined we’ll be to say the right thing while finding it difficult to do the right thing.

    That’s when making excuses for our behaviour becomes easy when others challenge us about the commitments that we haven’t honoured.

    This is an indication of a low level of self-respect.

    Self-respect is tainted when we lack gratitude for who we are.

    The more we dismiss the value of who we are, the more we’ll need validation from others. Hence the unhealthy cycle of focusing on what others think of us, versus being true to who we are.

    We’ll only be true to who we are if we truly value who we are.

    For this reason, don’t expect sincerity or consistency from one who is self-loathing. And realise that you are self-loathing when you struggle to be consistent or to follow through on the commitments that you make to others.

    It always starts with you.

  • Judge, as you would like to be judged

    Judge, as you would like to be judged

    When we behave badly, we pacify ourselves by focusing on what we intended, or why it was understandable for us to behave that way.

    When others treat us badly, we’re more inclined to assume that it is a true reflection of how little we mean to them, or how malicious they are.

    The moment we judge someone else’s intentions to be bad without knowing for certain what they intended, we’re projecting our value system on them, and then holding them accountable for it.

    Crazy, right?

    When we assume the worst of someone, it’s because we are assuming what would have driven us to behave that way, and then believing that it must be true for them as well.

    Such assumptions prevent us from reaching understanding because it results in us expecting others to defend what we insist is true about them, rather than giving them the opportunity to explain themselves.

    We judge others as harshly or as kindly as we judge ourselves. That’s assuming that we’re honest with ourselves.

    When we’re dishonest with ourselves, we’ll be inconsistent in how we judge others.

    Those whose favour we want, we’ll judge kindly. While those who cannot serve our needs, we’ll judge harshly.

    That’s how we lose ourselves to our need for validation.

    It always starts with you.

  • Don’t trade your virtues for vices

    Don’t trade your virtues for vices

    Don’t withhold the beauty of your spirit just because there is no one around to appreciate it.

    Be who you are, and let others be who they choose to be.

    The expectation of being treated the way we treat others is what causes much bitterness and anger.

    It’s not worth it.

    Give without the expectation of receiving. And when you don’t receive, give some more.

    Waiting for others to return the favour before we do more, denies us the fulfilment of being who we are, while compromising our values to be who they are.

    Remember, we cannot give what we don’t have.

    When you withhold your gifts because you’re waiting for others to respond in kind first, you’re assuming that they have within them what drove you to give of yourself in the first place.

    It’s a crazy cycle.

    Break it by giving without the expectation of receiving from them in return.

    That’s the secret to fulfilment and contentment in our lives.

    When we expect something in return, we deny ourselves that fulfilment and we turn our good deeds into transactions.

    When we transact with our virtues in that way, not only do we diminish the value of what we’ve done and who we are, but we also end up treating others the way that they’ve treated us.

    That’s how we lose ourselves to our expectations from others.

    It always starts with you.